Nijinsky: A Life of Genuis and Madness

Vaslav Nijinsky in costume for the ballet Le Spectre de la Rose, ca. 1912

By Richard Buckle, New York: Pegasus Books, 2012

Buckle was a dance critic, curator, and scholar of the Ballets Russes.  He was a pall bearer at Nijinsky's funeral and decided it was his mission to "collect every single surviving Diaghilev design in the world."  This is a lively, fun book full of sharp insight.  It reads like a Vanity Fair profile crossed with an academic text. Buckle does an excellent job in laying out the social milieu and cultural world of the Ballets Russes.  There is no extant film of Nijinsky dancing, but Buckle works hard to convey the astonishing grace and daring innovation of Nijinsky's career.  His decline into mental illness, he suffered from schizophrenia, is truly heart breaking.